Jim Henson's Tale of Sand

Tale of Sand is a graphic novel adapted in 2011 by Ramon K. Perez from an unproduced film script written by Jim Henson and Jerry Juhl.

I've been putting off writing about this book for a while, because I still can't form an opinion about it. On the one hand, it's got all the hallmarks of classic Jim Henson: a whimsical narrative style, a fantastical setting, lighthearted yet subtly twisted humor, all grounded by a lovable protagonist. But on the other hand, the book is a complete clusterfuck of unrelated symbology, strung together through a series of disjointed events. The work is a Mind Screw in the purest sense, and as such is inherently unsatisfying.

The problem, as I see it, is that I can't for the life of me figure out what Tale of Sand is supposed to be about. It's far too surreal to just be a classic adventure story, and too high-concept to be written off as irreverent, Monty Python-esque comedy. Jim Henson doesn't really have a penchant for just doing "weird for the sake of weird." But if there is some deeper allegorical meaning to all the elements of this story, I just can't find it.

In the book's Foreword, a quote from Jerry Juhl ascribes the Tale of Sand script to a sort of cultural paranoia in the late '60s, saying a lot of people were writing stories "...about people trapped in situations and thinking they got out, and then discovering that they didn't." In the Afterword, Lisa Henson suggests that the story is a reflection of the fears and uncertainties that her father felt as an aspiring artist trying to break into Hollywood. Either or both of these interpretations may be true, I suppose. But it still doesn't relieve the itching feeling in the back of my mind that I'm missing something bigger.

...

I've been speaking so far as though Jim Henson was the sole creator of this work, but something certainly should be said of the artist, Ramon Perez. (Jerry Juhl of course was also an important member, but as I am largely unfamiliar with him as an artist, and am less clear on what aspects of the final product are his contribution, I don't have much of anything to say about him.)

Perez breathes life into the story through the graphic novel form. His art dances on the border between cartoonishness and realism, creating the perfect environment for the surreal narrative of Tale of Sand. Perez also cleverly avoids the pitfall of simply creating storyboards for a film. He makes it a point to take full advantage of the comics page, and give Tale of Sand a signature look and feel that lets the book stand as a complete work of art on its own. But at the same time, the book is acting as an elegy for the film that might have been, for a vision that might only have been able to be properly realized in the hands of Henson himself. Pages of the original script are interwoven into the very scenery and landscape of the story, as if to remind you that this book, like all creative works, is only one interpretation, one possible result of the artist's original, pure creative vision.

Maybe that's the point of the whole thing. Maybe Tale of Sand is a story so personal, it only ever really made sense to Jim. Maybe what Tale of Sand is about, is every individual's endless struggle to find what it's about.

... God, that sounds pretentious as fuck.